Enemy story: The Big Ugly Thing
| Enemy | Story | Trivia |
Built by Zumama, the chieftain of the Eunectes tribe of Acahualla, as her masterpiece, "The Big Ugly Thing", or simply "Big Ugly", is a giant bipedal walker/mech (though having wheels/tracks on its legs as its locomotion) armed with a large buzzsaw on its right arm capable of easily cutting through Acahualla's resilient flora, a spiked fist on its left arm, and a large-caliber cannon affixed to its body.
Despite having a rather crude design by Terra's standards, seen as little more than a ramshackle, haphazardly assembled machine, Big Ugly functions reliably without major issues and are surprisingly well-armored thanks to being built with resilient iron alloys, capable of withstanding whatever Zumama's enemies can throw at it.
Big Ugly is piloted by the High Priest who also assisted Zumama in building it, though the mech also have an "autopilot" function.
Side stories
The Great Chief Returns
After developing a technomaniac attitude ever since seeing a Sargonian nomadic city with her eyes during her childhood, Zumama obtained books about machinery from Inam, one of the few Acahuallans who maintained contact with the outside world, and studied them until she met the High Priest at some point, who lend his assistance in assembling The Big Ugly Thing and volunteered to test it.[1]
By the time Gavial returned to Acahualla, the Big Ugly is mostly operational and Zumama used it when she is about to lose in a duel with Gavial as part of the Mahuizzotia festival to elect the Great Chief of Acahualla, which easily defeats Gavial before firing its cannon at the temple building, severely damaging it[2] and allowing Zumama to become the new Great Chief, declaring to end the Acahuallans' primitive "might makes right" mindset and had them embrace a new age of technology, one way or another.[3]
After learning from the High Priest that her Eunectes tribesmen had recovered a powerful aircraft engine from the crashed Rhodes Island aircraft carrying Gavial, Zumama then plans to install the engine on the Big Ugly. She also ordered her Eunectes tribesmen to collect iron ores from a nearby mine to upgrade the Big Ugly, but one of them, Yota, went too deep into the part infested by Originium, causing him to contract Oripathy.[4]
Despite several failed attempts, the R.I. aircraft engine was successfully installed on the Big Ugly. At this moment, Gavial and her R.I. company appears at the Eunectes village and demanded that Zumama returns the engine so that she could leave, but Zumama refuses, leaving Gavial with no option but to recover the engine by force, at which Zumama summons the Big Ugly.[5] Gavial then accepts Zumama's offer to have a "rematch" against the Big Ugly, this time alongside her R.I. company which includes Blaze, Ceobe, Croissant, and Utage. Amidst the rematch, the Big Ugly suddenly went haywire, likely due to the overpowered R.I. aircraft engine, and went on a rampage in its autopilot mode which forces Zumama to join forces with Gavial to stop the mech.[1]
In the end, the Big Ugly is finally destroyed thanks to the combined efforts of Zumama, the High Priest, and Gavial alongside her R.I. company,[6] and the stolen R.I. aircraft engine is recovered from the mech's husk in one piece.[7]
After joining R.I. in the aftermath of the Acahualla fiasco alongside the High Priest, Kemar, and Tomimi, Zumama, now codenamed "Eunectes", managed to rebuild the Big Ugly with assistance from Closure and R.I.'s Engineering Department, which is rechristened as "Raging Ironhide" and upgraded with R.I.'s technological marvels, resulting in a superior machine than its predecessor which is piloted by the High Priest as a mobile weapons platform to support Eunectes in the frontlines.[8]